1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a system for monitoring one or more vital functions of a passenger placed in a vehicle safety seat, the system providing a real time display of vital functions pertaining to the passenger, and in particular, the invention is directed to monitoring and providing a real time display of one or more vital functions pertaining to an infant placed in an infant bearing device, for example, but not limited to, a vehicle safety seat.
It is well documented, and in some instances legislated, that infant and/or child vehicle safety seats should not be placed on the front seat of a vehicle, and in particular, on the front seat of a vehicle equipped with a passenger side inflatable air bag system. Studies show that children are about 30% safer when placed on the back seat of a vehicle. However, there is still an effort within the industry to develop a vehicle safety seat that will allow parents to safely place their children on the front seat of a vehicle without any fear of injury if the passenger side air bag is inflated. One driving force behind the effort to develop a xe2x80x9csafe for front seatxe2x80x9d vehicle safety seat, is parental displeasure and concern over the need to place their child on the rear seat of the vehicle, out of sight, and out of reach of the parent. Such rear seated children, and especially rear seated infants, tend to make many parents uncomfortable with respect to the well being of their child, and in some instances, over concerned parents may even threaten the overall safety of the passengers riding in the vehicle as indicated in a CNN article entitled xe2x80x9cInfant seat safe for a front seat?xe2x80x9d published Mar. 3, 1999. The article points out that, in certain instances, where a child is riding in a safe seat position, where the safety seat is placed on the rear seat of a car, about 30% of the accidents under such safe seat conditions are caused by a driver""s distraction away from the road due to concern for the child on the rear seat. In other words, the concerned driver tends to focus his/her attention on the child rather than on road conditions and on driving the car. Therefore, although placing an infant or child into a safety seat located in the rear safe seat position may be safer from the infant/child viewpoint, overall vehicle safety may be reduced by as much as 30% due to driver distraction. Such risk is unacceptable from a safety viewpoint.
2. Brief Description of the related Art
Various devices have been developed in the past to monitor infants and children placed within vehicles. Some of these past devices have made an attempt to overcome the above mentioned problems associated with placing children in the safe seat position on the rear seat a vehicle. For example, two exemplary safe seat devices that improve driver/child contact are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,668,526 and 5,285,321. Both patents recognize the problem of parental concern over reduced contact with the infant, and both patents overcome the problem by providing mirror arrangements that allow the parent to view the rear seated child while driving the car. Other vehicle-related monitors, not directed to the safe seat problems associated with vehicle safety seats, have been developed to monitor children. Such monitors include, for example, child-monitoring devices that sound an alarm to prevent parents from inadvertently locking the children in parked cars as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 5,793,291. Another such monitor was developed to prevent possible kidnapping of children as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,640,145. Still other vehicle related monitors have been developed to be responsive to either the presence or absence of an infant/child safety seat on the passenger side front seat. Such devices may include means to disable the passenger side air bag system in response to the detected presence of an infant/child safety seat. Exemplary patents showing such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,996,421 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,233.
There are also many different infant/child-monitoring devices that have been developed that are not related to vehicle use. For example, there are monitoring systems that detect wet diapers, and audio monitor systems that simply watch over child activity from a remote location as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,838,240, and 5,119,072 respectively. There is a large number of monitoring devices that attempt to provide an early warning alert in an attempt to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Exemplary United States patents showing such SIDS early warning devices are U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,660, U.S. Pat. No. 5,912,624, U.S. Pat. No. 5,400.012, U.S. Pat. No. 5,241,300, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,816. These devices range from motion and audio detectors to temperature and breathing sensors, and one monitor system even includes a device that detects and responds to wet diapers with an alert concerning a possible SIDS event.
Finally, vehicle related monitor systems have also been developed for adult use, and in particular, systems have been developed to alert a drowsy driver to prevent him/her from falling asleep behind the wheel. Two such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,103, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,569,536.
Although many different infant/child monitoring devices have been developed in the past, and although there are various monitors available for use in a vehicle, it appears the art is silent with respect to a monitor system that provides a driver with a real time display of information related to the well being of an infant/child riding in a vehicle safety seat placed in the safe seat position on the rear seat of a vehicle. Therefore, as indicated in the above mentioned Mar. 3, 1999 CNN article, there is a long felt need within the art to overcome driver apprehension associated with such a rear seated child while at the same time allowing the driver to remain focused on driving conditions.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle safety seat that includes a system for monitoring one or more vital functions of a passenger placed in the vehicle safety seat.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a passenger monitoring vehicle safety seat capable of providing a real time display of one or more vital functions pertaining to a passenger placed in the vehicle safety seat.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a passenger monitoring vehicle safety seat capable of monitoring and comparing passenger vital functions with pre-stored vital function data.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide passenger monitoring vehicle safety seat having an alarm responsive to a condition where passenger vital functions fall outside a limit set by a pre-stored vital function data.
Finally, it is an object of the present invention to provide an infant monitoring safety seat that reduces driver anxiety related to placing an infant in the safe seat position on the rear seat of a vehicle.
In satisfaction of the foregoing objects and advantages, the present invention provides an improved passenger monitoring safety seat and system to monitor vital functions of a passenger placed in the vehicle safety seat. The system includes at least one sensor adapted to contact a passenger placed in the vehicle safety seat so that said sensor provides and transmits an electrical output signal indicative of a selected vital function pertaining to the passenger. A display unit, remote from the vehicle safety seat, includes a receiver and circuitry to acquire and amplify the output signal transmitted by the sensor, and the display unit provides a visual display indicative of said selected vital function. The display unit also provides an alarm if the output signal from the sensor falls outside a pre-selected range.